Per-compounds have been known for a number of years. For example, tetrafluoroethylene and other perhalogenated compounds are widely known and used in polymers, stable fluids and numerous other applications. Percyano and polycyano compounds, e.g., tetracyanoethylene, are also known and their chemistry reviewed in Chapter 9 in Z. Rappaport, "The Chemistry of the Cyano Group", John Wiley and Sons, Interscience Publishers, 1970. These polycyano compounds frequently undergo nucleophilic displacement reactions unique to compounds highly substituted by cyano groups. No art appears to exist, however, disclosing the compounds of the present invention.
Tetracyanopyrazine is described and claimed in Hartter U.S. Pat. No. 3,763,161. It serves as the starting material for making the novel tricyano[(p-disubstituted-amino)phenyl]-pyrazines of the present invention. These compounds are useful as dyes for synthetic and natural fibers and as pigments in synthetic resin finishes.